The Gingerbread Prison
by Queen of the Castle
Summary: A figurative path of breadcrumbs eventually leads Harry towards the best discovery of his life.


_Warnings: Put it this way: there's nothing more extreme mentioned here than what you'd find in the Grimm brothers fairy-tales. Oh, and there's definite hints of Stockholm Syndrome here as well._

_Author's Notes: For the slythindor100 advent challenge. This is a heavily bastardised adaptation of the Hansel and Gretel fairy-tale. The boys are only about nine or ten years old here. This goes AU well before a Hogwarts owl even thinks about winging towards Privet Drive with Harry's acceptance letter._

* * *

Deep in suburbia there lived a family small in number (though sadly not equally small in size; the neighbours even occasionally speculated that the father and the son, when placed side by side, might one day even outgrow the width of the not-entirely-modest house).

Or rather, it should be said, there lived a family plus one, for the youngest of the two children who lived at Number 4 Privet Drive was not considered by father, mother or son as _one of them_.

Nothing could have illustrated this fact quite as handily as what happened the day after Vernon Dursley was laid off from Grunnings.

Without even a reference to take with him to find new work with a similar income, this was a financial disaster of epic proportions (at least if you asked Petunia Dursley).

Perhaps the family could have survived quite happily for a time on its savings, even without a breadwinner, had the ever-growing Dudley Dursley not required such a very large amount of bread (and pudding, and chocolate, and hot chips slavered in gravy...). No one could ever know for sure.

As it was, Mr and Mrs Dursley, upon taking a realistic look at their finances, turned to each other with the same conclusion tumbling from their lips.

"That boy has got to go."

That was how young Harry Potter ended up literally thrown out the door like so much refuse. He was driven out of town first, of course – couldn't have the neighbours talking (any more than they usually did) – but the upshot was that he ended up miles away from the nearest road (worse, without remembering which direction that road had been) with his uncle telling him to pick a direction and keep walking, and not to come crawling back.

As if Harry had any desire to return to the people who thought it was better to leave him to starve than to simply go on a slight diet themselves to account for whatever tiny expense he might be if he stayed. When he left a path of determinedly scuffed footprints along the ground, it wasn't because he wanted to find his way back to the Dursleys' car (which he knew without a doubt wouldn't still be there waiting for him anyway), but purely because he hoped to avoid wasting time going in circles and retracing his steps. The wind would probably cover his tracks, but he had to try something, didn't he? It wasn't as though the Dursleys had allowed him to take anything but the over-large clothes on his back with him, leaving him with some handy item to lay down in pieces as he went along.

Not that would help all that much not to be going in circles when he didn't know where he _was_ heading. Harry was given to understand from what little he'd been allowed to learn at school that Great Britain wasn't such a very large place, in the grand scheme of things. Eventually he'd be bound to run into civilisation of some kind.

Eventually.

The problem was _when_, and whether he could actually last until that time came.

Harry was already well used to living on very little food and even less comfort, make no mistake. But even then, he was walking at a pained stagger by the third day of trekking almost non-stop and having nothing pass his lips but air, rainwater and, when he'd fallen on his face twice, dirt.

Tired, cold and starving, Harry was dying (almost literally, he couldn't help but think) to give it all up as bunk and stop bothering with wasting his energy and his time forcing himself to march onwards. That nearby patch of grass looked so appetising. He could lie down for the afternoon, and stay there all night long, and maybe not even rise once the morning came either.

He could just stay and be done. Stay and _rest_.

Of course, for all that it sounded like a truly delightful idea to his tired mind, Harry Potter had never understood the concept of 'giving up'.

He compelled himself to pass the inviting patch of grass by, barely even slowing as he did, and kept walking.

Sometimes in life courage and perseverance were rewarded. Not often, but sometimes. Harry had never considered himself to be a very lucky person until then, but fate obviously took one look at his pluck and decided otherwise; it placed a veritable mansion only two hours away from that patch of grass, directly in Harry's projected walking path.

When Harry clambered over a small hill and saw the looming residence not too far in the distance, he could have shouted for joy, if only his throat weren't so raspy. He couldn't have been happier to see the house (nor could his stomach have growled any louder in reaction) if the walls themselves had been made entirely of food.

From there, it was just a matter of sneaking in. And years of getting around the Dursleys, particularly Dudley and his cronies, had definitely honed Harry's sneaking skills.

Or so he'd thought.

The hallways weren't nearly as drafty as the outside despite being bordered by stone. In fact, the air was unnaturally warm and still, as if the house was magically stuck in some kind of perpetual mild summer. With no kind of heating in sight, it seemed impossible.

What he saw in the kitchen, when Harry located it, was even more improbable than the feel of the climate. Heavenly smells issued from boiling pots that (Harry could hardly believe his eyes) _stirred themselves_. Knives set to chopping without being held by hands. Two carrots levitated through the air, as if gravity were a mere inconvenience, easily overcome.

It was probably dangerous, and definitely insane, but Harry was more than willing to suspend both his disbelief and his sense of self-preservation if it meant easing that gnawing ache deep inside him. It wasn't long at all before he was shoving aside his awe and reaching for whatever edible items he could grab and push into his mouth.

They weren't just edible, as it turned out. Sublime would be a better descriptor. Exquisite. Better even than the tastes Harry imagined belonged to the fancy foods Aunt Petunia had served when Uncle Vernon had guests he was trying to impress over to the house (though Harry could hardly be sure, since of course he'd never been invited to those dinners).

It all looked and tasted fit for a proper feast. That was what finally reminded Harry what day it must be; the fourth evening since Uncle Vernon had abandoned him, which had been on 21 December.

Oh. _Christmas_. A Christmas feast, even. Harry had never been allowed to eat Christmas foods, or celebrate the holiday in any way other than quietly and privately, alone in his cupboard, occasionally with one of Dudley's already-broken toys clutched jealously in his hands.

He was still alone now, of course, but even in the shadow of the last few days of suffering, Harry thought this might be the best Christmas he could remember.

Until he was yanked away from the pudding he was digging into, and from the kitchen itself, in an instant.

A small, gnarled creature dropped its hand from where it had been yanking at Harry's knee.

"Dobby found him in the kitchen, eating the food," the creature announced, sounding strangely regretful. "Dobby brought the intruder to Master straightaway, as Master has demanded."

If Harry had thought the man that appeared suddenly in front of him would thank the creature (Dobby, apparently) for his efforts, he would have been disappointed. In fact, it was difficult to decide who the man looked down on with greater disgust: Harry or Dobby, the latter of which was sinking into a pitiful bow of obedience.

At least Dobby got to disappear quickly from the man's scrutiny – and Harry did mean _disappear_, for with a snap of his spindly fingers, Dobby vanished entirely from sight. Harry was left gaping at the spot Dobby had been. Was that how Harry had been transported so quickly from the kitchen?

"Well?" Harry's eyes snapped away from the empty space to meet the man's cold grey eyes. "Come forward, boy. Let me look at you," the man said in a voice that Harry imagined was supposed to sound kind, but instead felt false and slippery, especially given the expression of distaste that still hadn't faded from his face.

Harry refused to obey. If he were going to move at all, it would certainly be to run for it, not to wilfully allow this unknown factor any closer to him.

Perhaps the man sensed that, for he suddenly hissed in quite a different (and more truthful) voice, "You will heed me, you Muggle thief! Would you like me to show you how your kind is dealt with when you stray too close to my land, on the rare occasion that you're not too useless to even open your eyes and see that the land here exists at all? I'll give you a hint: if you take that option, you'll wish you'd decided to starve to death in the woods instead of helping yourself to my food."

He reached for something by his side, presumably a weapon, and the thought had Harry trying to dart away the way he would from Dudley when the larger boy was on one of his rampages. Harry was stopped literally in his tracks, though; frozen solid, except that Harry wasn't cold. He tried very hard to lift his foot and take another step forward, but Harry couldn't budge a single muscle. He would have suspected that time itself had stopped if he couldn't see the man circling around him.

When he was fully in front of Harry once more, the man said, "Did I give you the impression that I was going to permit you to leave, just like that?"

Harry couldn't even shake his head, though (small mercy) he could move his eyes. They took in the details of the man that they hadn't picked up on before, including the long, thin stick of wood that the man held in his right hand, which must have been what he'd been reaching for.

A magic wand, Harry suddenly knew, almost instinctively; more like _remembering_ than deducing, which was mad, because Harry had never come across magic in his life. There seemed little room for doubt that this was indeed magic, though, and that the man was some kind of evil wizard.

Harry had no idea how he could possibly fight a wizard. He couldn't even _move_. He'd been so easily trapped that he still didn't know what hit him.

It didn't look like there was going to be much of an opportunity to fight after all, actually, Harry realised, because 'fighting' implied something two-sided, and the man looked by now like he intended to just finish Harry off as quick retribution for his trespassing and stealing.

Harry wondered what would happen to his body, after the man killed him. Would he be chopped up and made into a pie to help replace some of the food that was stolen? He doubted it, somehow; the man didn't seem the type to enjoy literally snacking on his enemies, for all that he looked at Harry with a strange kind of hunger. Nor did he look as though he lacked the money to buy truckloads more food; his clothes were clearly opulent, even if they looked a little like a woman's dress to Harry's eyes, and his attitude was that of a man who knew he had enough money to also have power.

No, without any need for Harry to serve a practical purpose, Harry would probably be simply buried under the hedges he'd had to climb through to get to the house. On the land of a man like this, there were probably piles of bodies already there; Harry couldn't be the first person to invite the man's dangerous ire, nor the first who'd been too tempted by the sight of this place to stop himself from entering and pilfering what he could. At least Harry supposed that in that case he'd finally have some company, of sorts, in the ground.

Luckily, it didn't come to that. Harry didn't end up as fertiliser for one of the rose bushes. And, strangely, he _did_ end up with some company regardless, and it was of a much more talkative variety than a bunch of corpses.

"Father, what _are_ you doing?" was Harry's first introduction to Draco Malfoy. His second introduction was the sight of a boy (who couldn't be far from Harry's age, he noted) standing in the far doorway across the room, barely in Harry's line of sight. The boy's blond hair shone in the reflection of nearby firelight like flames atop his head (or, Harry thought fancifully, like a kind of halo).

Whatever had been holding Harry so firmly in place dropped away at the sound of the boy's voice. To Harry's dismay, he fell clumsily to the ground rather than immediately resuming his race for freedom, and he must have injured himself in the fall, for he found it difficult to rise again.

"Draco," the man (Father) replied. "Just in time. You're old enough, I think, to learn a little about what sport we can make of Muggle wretches like this."

"Muggle?" the boy sounded disbelieving. "Then how could he have got past the wards? Surely he's a wizard, like us? And you always said that it was only Muggles that were for sport."

The boy's father looked briefly stumped by this, and then annoyed, as if he couldn't believe he'd been brought up short like that.

"All right," the man conceded, sounding reluctant. "Let's see, shall we? What's your name, boy?"

"Harry."

"Your surname, you idiot."

Harry's tongue seemed to freeze of their own accord, as if his body thought allowing this information to pass his lips might not be the best idea even though his mind wanted to shout 'Potter' for all to hear if there was a chance that it might get him out of this situation (though he wasn't exactly clear on _how_ the man knowing his family name might help things).

"Clearly a Mudblood, if that, if he's not willing to own to his heritage," the man said.

"Maybe," the boy said, his uncertainty obvious.

The man sighed: another concession, obviously. "If you're a wizard, boy, then let's see a spell."

The boy snorted. "Well he's not a dog, able to bark on command. He can't be Hogwarts age yet – look at him - and he has no wand. We should wait and see whether he lets out any accidental magic, and maybe the time spent waiting will make him speak up about his name as well."

The man did not seem to like that suggestion, and it looked like he was going to deny the request until the boy added, "I'll take full responsibility for him while he's here."

The man's lips twitched, surprised and pleased. "Something that has you actually wanting to 'take responsibility' for anything? How could I possibly say no? But Draco? Don't let me down."

The boy's jaw clenched at that last bit, but he nodded sharply in agreement.

Harry almost wanted to fall at the boy's feet, then, and sob out his thanks for stepping in and likely saving Harry's life. Harry had never sobbed, though, not even when Dudley beat him so black and blue that he had bruises upon bruises. He wasn't about to start now.

Besides, his gratitude sort of evaporated just as soon as he found himself locked in what was clearly a dungeon. It was twice as bad as being shut into his cupboard; at least _that_ had an air of familiarity about it, which was a kind of comfort even in the pitch dark with spiders crawling over him and dust dancing its choking motes around him.

The boy peered in at him through the metal bars after they'd clanged shut, and continued to stare even after his father had stormed off. It made Harry feel as though he were in a zoo on the wrong side of the observation barriers.

"I'm Draco," the boy finally said. "Draco Malfoy."

He held out his hand through the bars, clearly expecting Harry to shake it.

Harry wanted very badly to refuse... to stare at that outstretched hand with as much disgust as the boy's father had levelled in Harry's direction earlier.

The boy looked so hopeful, though. Harry wondered how long it had been since there had been a boy his own age he could to talk to in this massive and nearly empty house.

Harry twitched with indecision for a moment longer, then slid his palm against Draco's.

"Are you an evil wizard too?" Harry asked without meaning to speak, his curiosity apparently getting the better of him.

Draco smirked, letting Harry's hand fall free. "I'm a wizard, but I'm not so very evil, no. At least, _I_ don't think so, but don't repeat that to my fellow Slytherins when we get to Hogwarts. I'll have a reputation to maintain."

"We?" Harry asked. It seemed easier to focus on that choice of words than to ask questions about things that Draco seemed to think should be part of Harry's everyday knowledge (like exactly what Hogwarts and Slytherins were when they were at home).

"Of course," Draco said. "Father's in a tither that you managed to get all the way inside undetected – for a while, anyway – and it seems to be blinding him to the fact that no Muggle could ever do that. So of course we'll be at Hogwarts together. Though I won't be able to talk to you anymore once we get there if it turns out you actually are a Mudblood." Draco shrugged apologetically.

Bewildered by this boy who acted so differently towards Harry than anyone else he'd ever met, Harry found himself agreeing to this strange clause in what Draco seemed to view as their prospective friendship.

As time told, it _did_ turn into a friendship of sorts, Harry supposed, for Draco visited his cell for hours at a time, and days on end, bringing food (so much more of that delicious food) with him. He even claimed that he'd was the only thing stopping his Father from coming down as well and tormenting Harry. Harry wondered whether that was just bragging. The man didn't exactly seem entirely wrapped around Draco's finger.

Whatever the real cause, it was just as well the man was never anywhere in sight of Harry's prison. One day, when Harry was staring with intent at the lock of his cage as he listened to Draco prattle on about something (broomsticks, Harry was fairly certain, and flying free, which Harry wanted for himself more than anything), the lock gave up an audible clicking sound. The cell door rattled, just slightly, and Harry could see a tiny gap between it and the other metal bars surrounding him that hadn't been there a moment ago.

"Did you...?"

"It wasn't me," Draco said. He looked inordinately pleased with himself. "See? Didn't I say you were magic? I can't wait to tell Father I was right." ('And he was wrong' was left unsaid, though just barely.)

"Er," Harry said, "do you think you could maybe hold off on that? Only, now that I'm unlocked, I would really like to get out of here without having to wait for your father's say-so."

"You want to leave me?" Draco asked petulantly.

Harry sighed. "I'd like to be friends, of course, but I can't stay locked constantly away in a prison, can I?" he said, not really phrasing it as a question (mainly because he wasn't one hundred percent sure Draco would have agreed with him if he did).

Still petulant, Draco muttered, "Suppose not. But Father won't like it. He'll raise hell, especially as I promised I'd be responsible for you."

Harry made himself smile in a way that he hoped was encouraging. "You can handle him, though, can't you?"

Draco huffed, sounding put out. It was the same sound his father had made when he was making a concession. Harry's smile turned real.

"So will you help me find the way outside, then?" Harry asked.

"You snuck inside all on your own, didn't you? Why don't you just go out the same way?"

"What if your father figured out how I got in and blocked it off? Besides," Harry added, purposely playing up to Draco's obvious vanity, "I bet you've got all kinds of secret back doors that your father will never figure out."

Draco preened a little. "I do," he agreed. "All right. Hurry up if you're coming."

The cell door swung fully open, and for the first time in weeks, Harry was able to step through it, and to keep stepping, stepping, all the way up and out into the outside air (still intolerably cold compared to the artificial warmth inside the house, but somehow it no longer bothered him as much as it had before).

Freedom. It tasted just as sweet as the food inside the Malfoy house ever had.

"There," Draco said once he'd guided him most of the way across the expansive grounds surrounding the house. "You can make it the rest of the way back to your family now, can't you?"

"I don't have a family," Harry said. "They died when I was too young to remember them."

"Oh." Draco didn't seem to know what to say to this; it was clear he'd never contemplated an existence without parents who catered to his whims and showered love and gifts down on him even when they were being stern with him. "Is that why you wouldn't tell us your surname? Because you don't have one?"

"No," Harry said. Whatever harm there might have been in telling his last name to Draco's father, he doubted it attached to Draco himself. "I do have one. It's Potter."

Strangely, Draco's eyes went almost comically wide. Harry felt something warm stroke soothingly up his forehead, pushing his fringe up and away from that peculiar scar of his. It took him a moment to realise that it was Draco's hand that was touching him; that was ticking slightly at the hair at his crown; that was now stroking down Harry's face like he was some kind of treasure previously unknown.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

Draco looked for a moment like he would burst if he didn't somehow manage to say a hundred different things at once. A few moments later, he managed to rein all that in purposefully.

"Nothing," Draco finally said. "I... just... See you at school, Harry."

Harry wanted to ask how he was supposed to see Draco at Hogwarts (he'd gathered from Draco's cell-side rantings that that was the school he spoke about) when he didn't have the slightest idea how to get there, or even where it was. Instead, he just said. "Sure, I guess. If I manage to find my way out of the countryside before then."

"Nothing easier, when I've got this." Draco brandished a wand. "Father's spare," he said in explanation. "Swiped it ages ago. It's easy enough to get where you want to go when you've got a wand."

The hand holding the wand shot determinedly into the air, and the next moment Harry could have sworn he saw trees jumping out of the way as a purple triple-decker bus appeared from nowhere (Harry was never going to get used to that) and squeezed past their trunks, coming to a stop just a few feet in front of the two boys.

As the door swung open, Draco smirked (clearly very impressed with himself, and not without reason) and added, "Like I said: see you at school."

God, if this meant Harry might actually have a way to _get_ there, how brilliant would that be? A school where Harry could learn all sorts of mad magical stuff, and where he could hang out with Draco besides.

"Yeah," Harry answered, grinning. "I can't wait."

Someone cleared their throat pointedly, and Harry finally gave his attention to the young man standing not-so-patiently near the bus doors.

By the time the man had explained what the bus was about, and Harry had explained his situation with a few omissions, because he didn't want to get Draco in trouble ("Not to worry," the bus conductor said. "We'll get you to the Ministry to sort something out right quick smart, and don't worry none about the fare either – Ministry reimburses us, in special cases like this sort."), Draco was gone. Back up to the Manor, most likely, so he didn't have to stick around and watch Harry actually leave him behind.

Harry wished he could have waved goodbye. Or maybe even given Draco a parting hug, since Harry had always been keen to try hugging on for size with someone who might not shove him immediately away and then slug him for good measure.

Even without that, it was all right, though. Harry was finally convinced it wasn't a permanent goodbye, after all.

They would see each other again soon.

~FIN~


End file.
